Angel Sanctuary pt 2

Pt 2-

Metacognitive Thinking


It never occurred to me to ask him his name. I realize now that I should have. At least then I could title my pictures. Or be able to call it out when I felt lonely or something. But like I said before, Shakespeare, even though he was a nut, was right about that stupid smelly rose. So I decided that by any other name, he would smell just as sweet. And yet, that’s usually the first thing you ask a person. ‘Hello, what’s your name?’ I mean, past all the small talk of course, that’s what the root of the meeting comes down to, finding out the most basic thing about the other person which is usually their name. And yet, the question had slipped my mind completely.

Now is the time that I must explain something called metacognition. In the process of metacognition, one must analyze their own thoughts in such a way that convinces them of the reason that they did something or thought something at a given time. In layman’s terms, that means that you have to think about your thinking. I needed to think about why I didn’t think to ask him his name. I needed to ask myself why I had forgotten to ask myself what his name was.

The solution was simple.

I hadn’t wanted to. I hadn’t needed to. The fact of the matter is that when you meet the love of your life, you already feel like you know them. You feel like you know everything about them without even knowing their name. The keyword in this sentence is ‘feel’. You don’t actually know everything about them, in fact, you know nothing about them at all… but you FEEL like you do. And since emotions often drive us to completely irrational conclusions, particularly us teenage girls- don’t give me that look, do a little metacognition-, I was completely resolute that I knew everything about my angel. Of course, I couldn’t name one thing out loud, but it was the strength of the feeling, the security of knowing, that made it so definite.

Remember way back in that last part when I ranted about how when I know something, I need to tell someone? Well, this was one of those times. Unfortunately, my entire family was gone. Sound too good to be true? Let me assure you, it’s true. My dad, mom, big sister, little sister, and little brother had left me here. They hadn’t meant to of course. I mean, it wasn’t like they were all in on leaving Rachel behind, but it worked out more like ‘big sister needs to go to acting school, little sister needs to go to dance academy, and mommy and daddy and little brother are going to a big pastor-people’s Foursquare Convention’. Did I mention that my parents are pastors?

I didn’t? Hmm… I guess I figured the fruits of the spirit were proof enough that I am a Pastor’s Kid. Now you know everything about me. I’m a short brunette with glasses, an all A average, and an extremely sarcastic personality. Ironic, isn’t it? Irony. The story of my life. Don’t believe me? Listen to this:

The second time I crossed paths with my angel was the same time I almost crossed paths with death... Yet again. But this time was different. Very different. There were no squirming creatures or begging middle-aged men. Just me and the road… and drunk drivers on ice of course, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

I forgot to mention my other sister, Valerie. We met in Seventh Grade and after a few years of me severely embarrassing myself, we eventually became best friends. And now we’re sisters. Such is the way of the God-following sisterhood. In any case, Val lives only about a five minute walk from my house. And of course, I got very lonely in my giant house filled with emptiness, so it is natural that I would want to expend a few minutes down the icy streets of my neighborhood to visit her and babble my head off for hours about the man I knew absolutely nothing about. She was always a very good listener and still is. Maybe that’s just because you sort of have to be to even consider being my friend. Henceforth, I am an excellent professional-vomit-onto-page-words-which-then-eventually-make-a-story-maker (also known as the most primitive form of writer).

My course of action was that I had to make the trip down to Val’s house. The road was icier than I thought and I had to pull my scarf up over my mouth just to be able to breathe, but I loved the cold so I was silently grateful for the quiet freeze. I locked my door, crammed my hands into my pockets, and made my way down to the dimly lit streetlight where I had met my angel only two nights prior. Now it was the afternoon of the third day and I was ready to tell my sister everything. All I needed to do was get there.

Quite often in this world, things that seem like a horrible misfortune will reshape themselves into something that you would never want to miss. Even more often, things horrible just happen and you have to force yourself to find something to be positive about in order to convince yourself that the world isn’t all bad. But what it all comes down to is psychology. If you are a pessimist, no matter what happens, you will be able to find something negative about it, and if you are an optimist, you are determined to view all things as basically good. Or you can be like me- an independent, someone who recognizes that bad things do happen and so do good things, but it’s your job to classify them as one or the other.

For instance, when Val was not home, it was a bad thing. On the other hand it was a clear night and I was already bundled up, so really it was a good thing because now I could walk on into the night as long as I wanted. I could go home and warm up or I could just stay out here until I got bored of walking around. I decided to perform the latter of the two. And for a while, it was a very good thing. My nose and cheeks red from the bittersweet cold, my legs moving freely across the frozen road of my neighborhood while my hands sat confined in my pockets. My eyes glancing from house to house as I watched the inside lights go off and the streetlights go on. Imagining what type of families each house held as I walked past them with a brisk calmness. Yes, a very good thing.

For instance, when I came to a bend in the road and saw a car carrying what I perceived to be one of the reckless, lunatic teenage boys who seem to occupy every street no matter where you live, giving his friends who occupied the back seat a thrill ride no doubt, skidding sideways and coming straight at me, I immediately thought ‘bad thing’. How could anything good ever come out of something like that? You may be asking. I saw my life flash before me and another newspaper headline only this time it was the boys who were stupid too, ‘Stupid Boys Make Road-kill out of Equally Stupid Girl’. Stupid kids, the readers would say as they dumped the newspaper into the trash. Newspapers aren’t fun to read when there are headlines like that.

Or I could think of the car skidding across the ice in a beeline for me as a good thing. For the second before it hit me, I felt a familiar presence flood over me and saw a fiery streak shoot out in front of me. With eyes wide but hazy, I saw a figure with immense glowing wings grab the car’s front with enormous strength and force it to slow down. I watched his face strain with the effort, but his feet made no mark onto the ice that they seemed to use as friction. What really freaked me out was that the teenage driver seemed to have no idea what was going on. He thought he was gaining control all by himself. How could he not see it? How could he not see that glowing figure use all of its strength to save their lives… and mine? Finally, my angel was able to set the car back onto the right track and the vehicle continued on its way with the driver shouting that he had it under control now and that his friends should stop crying like babies back there.

I stared. My angel… he had saved me yet again. I watched him as he stood there in the center of the road, bent over to catch his breath. After a short while, he straightened and noticed me. He immediately blinked and looked at his own back. He sucked in a sharp breath as his wings came into view. They were gone the next instant and he stood just how I remembered him. Under that lamppost. He came over to me and held out a hand. It was only then that I realized that I was on the ground, my butt sunken into the ever-present shoulder of the road's snow bank. His eyes held that same kindness and comfort that I had so greedily remembered.

I took his hand and he pulled me up gently to stand on my feet. He pulled his hand out of my grasp quickly before I could even begin to think of how to describe its characteristics. He took a step back. He was looking me over again. Critiquing his work. I wanted to smack him, but I knew I couldn’t, partly because my arm wouldn’t reach and partly because I just couldn’t. It seemed like almost a sin to hurt something so beautiful. Like shooting a dove.

But that didn’t change the fact that I hated it when he looked at me like that. Like I was something that he had been working on all his life and if there was just one little thing wrong with it, all his work was for naught. It made me feel… inferior. Almost like how a bug must feel under a magnifying glass. How an amoeba must feel like under a microscope. One wrong move and it will be noticed, studied, written down, carried out… my synonym processor is still working as you can tell.

I decided that I needed to tell him, so I did. “Stop that,” I snapped, louder than I meant it.

With his concentration broken, his eyelids fluttered and he looked at my face, his own face betraying a quizzical and yet slightly knowing expression, “Stop what?”

I was frustrated, “You know, looking at me like that. It’s annoying. Stop it.”

He cocked his head to the side and furrowed his eyebrows, staring at me as if I was the most confusing creature on the face of the earth. Finally, he shook his head as if in amusement.

“What?” I asked, trying not to get angry.

He half-smiled in the way of someone trying desperately to hold back a laugh, “You’re just… funny.”

It was my turn to blink. “Funny?”

He nodded briefly.

I was taken aback. I had been called funny before, but that was usually when I was trying to be as such. Not when I was being flat-out serious. I still have no idea why he angered me so. Probably because I had no way of showing him how I felt. How he seemed completely oblivious to how I gazed at him and waited for two nights for his return. I was angry at how he seemed to be mocking my feelings, like I was just a joke. A child…

I was about to lash out at him and demand an explanation, when his voice denied my fury once again, “Describe me.”

My eyes went wide. What kind of conversational tactic was that? That is… assuming he was trying to make polite conversation which, if such was the case, he was failing miserably at. Stumbling for words, I answered, “Umm… you’re about 18-25 years of age… wearing a black coat and black pants and a white shirt and a black tie…” I then proceeded to recount his exact description just as I had in the previous part. He listened and seemed thoughtful the entire time. When I had finished, he just shrugged.

“Huh,” he muttered and turned away.

“Wait!” I said for the second time upon our meeting. Irony?

He stopped and looked over his shoulder patiently, “Yes?”

I sucked in my breath, composing myself and said with resolution to the ground, “Please don’t go.” All sarcasm and spite had been washed away from my tone as my heart spoke to him directly. I didn’t notice that my hands were wringed around my scarf, twisting it and contorting it in nervous patterns. I bit my lip and went on, “I just… I don’t know how to thank you. This is the second time that you’ve saved me. I… I know what you are and I know that I can never repay you for what you’ve done so it seems wrong of me to want you to stay. I mean, you’ve done so much already, but…” I looked at him and ended with everything in me, “could you at least tell me your name?”

His eyes never left me as he turned and walked back up to me, closer than before. His smile was gone, but his eyes were so soft I thought that they would melt down and drip into mine as he spoke, “You are a very special person, Rachel. Not many people can see me. And even fewer ever learn my name.” He cocked his head, “But who knows? Maybe someday…”

He smiled. I blinked. And he was gone.

***

I went home that day feeling like a blender. Sounds funny, doesn’t it? But I did. I felt like a blender. A blender filled to the brim with a puree of half a cup of confusion, happiness, and sadness missed in with a fresh batch of steaming hot guilt and not forgetting that pinch of frustration and half-eaten anger.

In short, I had mixed feelings as I opened my door and shrugged off my shoes and my coat and my scarf, letting them fall to the ground. I locked the door from the inside and must have made a break for the stairs for about an hour later I found myself waking up from a fitful nap on my bed. I got up and stretched and decided that it was no use. That I needed to stop this metacognition before I hurt myself and start questioning every other thing that I think or do.

But how the heck did he know my name? And was he really my Guardian Angel? Did I even believe in them? How long has he known me?

It was obvious that I needed to do some research… although I had already read way too many books.

I decided that the best way to clear a foggy brain was to wash it. Although brain washing has several different meanings, to me it means to either watch a really stupid movie or clean up the house. And since movies involved names, I chose option number two, yet again. I was on a roll, eh?

I patted my severely overweight cat that spent her days sleeping on my bed and shoving things in and out of her body about three times a day. And you thought I was over exaggerating with ‘severely’. Her name was Baby, but I never called her that. I could probably write a book based namely on all of the names that I called my cat. Names such as Fatness, Queen Fatty, Precious Cat, Precious Girl, Booboo, and more recently Boobaw. It was as I pondered this fact that I realized that my angel probably had more than one name too. I sat up fast in my bed. Yes. He was an angel right? Don’t angels live forever? So he must have a bagillion different names in respect to how old he was. A smile spread across my face and I stood in exaltation. So that was why he wouldn’t tell me his name. He just had so many that he couldn’t be telling the truth if he chose just one.

With greatly lifted spirits, I set off down the stairs to perform my previously decided task. I bounced down each step until I came to the pile of my clothes that I had discarded earlier. You know, way back when I was a blender? It seemed so long ago as I scooped them up with exuberance and carried them up to my room.  

I folded my scarf neatly and placed it in the top drawer of my dresser. I like to think of myself as one of those so-organized-that-its-scary type of teenagers, although compared to the rest of my family, I’m really only moderately neat. I had a place for every item and article of clothing in my room, and even though that is where I place them, I don’t usually fold them. So it is strange, therefore, to think that I was cheerful enough to actually straighten and untangle every inch of my wrinkly coat.

I pulled out all of the sleeves and zipped up the zipper, buttoning every button back into place. It was then that I did an even more peculiar action. I went through each pocket, turning it inside out and gathering up the lint to discard it into my nearby garbage can. But even so, it wasn’t until I had the coat hung up on the rack that I saw something floating atop the strands of my carpet.

Instinctively, I picked it up. It was a strange golden card which shimmered in the light and was embossed with small, but clear black letters:

‘Meet me under the light tomorrow.
You know which one.
It appears that we have a lot to talk about.

-Ishmael Celeste’

And as I closed my hands around the card, letting myself fall back into a land where nothing matters and everyone is named and stupid movies actually make sense, somewhere a feather fell.